Cultural Diversity And The American Culture

Health in all cultures is an important aspect of life. A person’s cultural background, religion and/or beliefs, greatly influences a person’s health and their response to medical care (Spector, 2004). These diverse cultures guide decisions made in daily life; what food eaten, living arrangements made, medications taken and medical advice listened to. A nurse must be knowledgeable and respectful of these diverse cultures and understand their importance when providing care. This understanding helps to build a strong nurse/patient relationship, increasing patient compliance, which ensures positive outcomes are met. Patients who are satisfied

Both articles express how important it is to be culturally self-aware and in touch with your personal beliefs, views, and morals. If you aren’t aware of what your cultural beliefs are you won’t be able to provide you patients with the cultural care and respect that they require in their recovery to become healthy again. In addition, the two articles (Newson 2009, Byrson 2012) both talk about how important it is to be open minded with people who may have a different opinions and views on certain things. If you aren’t open to treating you patients in the cultural way that they want to be treated, your patient will feel disrespected and unimportant. Therefore, their health will suffer because of your incompetence to accommodate their cultural needs. A nurse needs to be culturally self-aware, they need to know what their own personal views are first so they can understand that not everyone’s views will be the same. This means they need to be capable of being open and accepting to other people’s cultural wants and needs. By being these two things you will be able to provide people of all cultures with the respect and treatment they

The term culture is defined as “the thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions of racial, ethnic, religious, or social groups” (Potter & Perry, 2013). With the increase of culturally diverse populations in the United States, it is important for nurses to practice cultural competence. Cultural competence is the ability to acquire specific behaviors, skills, attitudes, and policies in a system that permits “effective work in a cross-cultural setting” (OMH, 2013). Being culturally competent is essential because nurses who acknowledges and respects a patient’s health beliefs and practices are more likely to have positive health outcomes (OMH, 2012). Every culture has certain views and attitudes concerning

America is greatly influenced and enhanced by the many versatile cultures which inhabit it. Cultural diversity has added to our economy in such a way that it brings innovated ideas and contact structures throughout the world. International cuisines have come to America through subcultures, have expanded the food industry, and have allowed English Americans to try new foods and flavors. Immigrants have brought with them religious values that greatly differ and vary from those at which were natural in the main stream American culture. The educational development through foreign nationals has led America, as a nation, to excel and be deemed one of the most intelligent nations in the world! Consequently, the subcultures have kept our

The nursing profession is known for being a caring and compassionate career path that is loving and accepting of all individuals. The traits of many of us are based on our cultural background and therefore it is important to be culturally aware of different traditions and preferences pertaining to cultures that we directly interact with. Both taking into consideration the patient’s culture and recognizing the impact of one’s own personal beliefs are competencies that a nurse should demonstrate and are listed under the first standard of practice according to the American Nurses Association (ANA, 2015).

With the large increase multicultural population in the United States, nurses encounter patients with differences in healthcare beliefs, values and customs. To provide adequate nursing care, nurses must be aware of these differences. They must respect and acknowledge the patient’s culture. To do this, nurses need education on cultural competence to ensure patient satisfaction and better patient outcomes.

Nurses have the responsibility of caring for a diverse group of people. These people come from different cultures, races, and religious backgrounds. Religion plays a major role in patient care and has for many years. Cultural competency is a major component of nursing practices. Understanding culture is imperative in knowing what is important to a patient and how to address his or her healthcare needs. Understanding culture is also important when determining what suggestions to make about interventions for treatment. Culture is defined as many people interacting and sharing with one another their patterns of behavior, beliefs and values (Burkhardt, G. & Nathaniel, A., 2014).

We live in a very diverse nation and overcoming challenges related to cultural beliefs and preferences is a very common obstacle for health care workers today. In an article in The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing cultural diversity is defined as being more than just race,

In today’s society, it is very important for the healthcare professional to be educated about the culture of their patients. It can be seen that the number of patients who are Muslim are increasing throughout the healthcare system. It is challenging for healthcare workers to care for the needs of Muslim patients when they don’t understand their cultural beliefs. Muslims don’t necessarily have the same health beliefs, outcomes, or priorities that their providers have, therefore making it more difficult to come to a final healthcare decision (Al-Oraibi, 2009.) “This intercultural gap in understanding between clients and providers may result in poor care services and low levels of satisfaction” (Al-Oraibi, 2009.) Muslims are

The care needs of patients continue to change, as the United States population becomes more diverse. Nurses will be required to be more knowledgeable and respectful of the differences in cultural and religious beliefs as this diversity continues. The American Nurses Association (ANA) states, “knowledge of cultural diversity is vital at all levels of nursing practice…nurses need to understand: how cultural group groups define health and illness; what cultural groups do to maintain wellness; what cultural groups believe to be the causes of illness; and how healers cure and care

Because our nation is culturally diverse we must be prepared to teach the next generation of nurses to be culturally sensitive so they won’t alienate their patients, and risk making the patients worse off. To insure this goal we must change how the UW-Madison School of Nursing treats these non-europeans: people from various arts of the Middle-East, Asia, and Latin America. Without instruction in cross-cultural medicine medical practitioners make patients wary, through breaking taboos during the course of ones treatment. (Fadiman, 61)

The forces of globalization, including more affordable travel are leading to increased cultural and ethnic diversity of populations in the Western Hemisphere. It estimated that non-European Americans currently make up a third of the US population and will become the majority by 2080 (Grant & Letzring, 2003). Naturally, nurses are for this reason encountering greater diversity in the patients they are responsible for treating. It is important to note that these groups might not have the same value system with respect to conventional Western medicine. The philosophy of paternalism has largely been discarded and as such greater emphasis on patient involvement, autonomy and consent have become central to nursing as a profession (Pozgar, 2013). It is the responsibility of nurses to ensure that patients are cared for in a manner that is respectful of their individual beliefs and cultures. One such population that is experiencing growth in the United States is those belonging to the Islamic faith or “Muslims”. Not only does this group have distinct cultural practices, they may also be expecting discrimination and stigma as a result of these practices that could prevent them from seeking out medical care (Wehbe-Alamah, 2008). In the following paper, some of these cultural practices and their relevance to nursing practice are discussed.

In 2014, 35 million Americans identified as Hispanic, of whom 64 percent said they had Mexican heritage - almost 11 percent of the total population. As birthrates for Hispanics exceed those of Anglos, demographers estimate that by 2042 non-Hispanic whites will be a numerical minority in the United States. At the beginning of this century, there were twenty-one states where Hispanics were the largest ethnic minority.

The current United States of America population based on the estimates by the United Nations is 326,122,404 which is equivalent to 4.28% of the total population in the world. In the United States, the population density is 36 per Km2. The entire area of the U.S land is estimated to be 9,000,000 Km2. About 83.7% of the United States population lives in the urban areas. The median age in America is about 37.8 years.

Cultural differences impact nurse’s ability to provide competent care for transcultural patients. Furthermore, the lack of education on different cultural factors such as language, beliefs, and values, can challenge some nurse’s ability to provide adequate care.Also, as a nurse it is important to understand the barriers to moral courage. If a nurse has knowledge on all these aspects they will be able to provide quality care. In the article “Nursing Care of Iraqi Patients” Goodman (2015), wrote about a study revealing cultural factors that impacted military nurse’s ability to provide competent care for the Iraqi patients. According to Goodman(2015), the study found that nurses who had lack of an education on Iraq’s culture